Who Loves You?

Yes, ok. I am the cutest baby.
Originally uploaded by Sriracha.

We have family in town for the fourth and thereafter.
I am holed up in my room to type absent the wobbly wanderer that is Elliot. Elliot has been walking since 8 months and will be celebrating his 1 year (first birthday, they call it) next week. He must be predominantly accelerated. And a future athlete.
Please, Elliot, become an athlete and get paid lots of money and support your cousin who has chosen poverty in career and love.
Please?
I'll give you some Cheerios and watch you eat them.
Or a bottle?
You like bottles, right? Isn't that what babies want?
Wait. You're pooping again.
Ok. A little privacy?
Just come see me when you're ready and you've signed a muti-million dollar contract.

Cub Foods and Votive Candles: a partnership in food, faith.

Virgen de Guadalupe
Originally uploaded by Sriracha.

Ever since she entered our kitchen a few days ago, the Virgin of Guadalupe has brought nothing but good eats. Pictured is Mom's kick a** homemade Chex Mix. Not pictured are the cookies from our neighbor, Pam and the Angel Food Cake from our neighbor, Debbee.
This Virgin is here to stay.
I realize that the BVM is not a patron saint of cooking or even homes, but she's got pull and I think she's doing great work.

Bang on the Fourth of July

She Bangs
Originally uploaded by Sriracha.

Here they are.
Can you see how irritated I am?
If I'm lucky, the fireworks tonight will send down some schrapnel and singe this fringe off once and for all.

All Aboard

Jean Claude Van Damme.
Four words.
One bragging right: Worst movie actor. EVER.
Last evening we viewed his "film" (I use the word loosely), Derailed.
Tagline: The deadliest disease ever discovered is about to be unleashed on the world.
What they meant to say: This movie is the deadliest disease ever. Don't come near it. Please. Run away and catch a plane to the farthest reaches of the earth to escape this ridiculously embarassing waste of film.
IMDB.com lists only one of the many goofs. The rest include such blunders as:
1. No coherent timeline. We are lead to believe that this movie is linear, but if the shots are chronological, how can a man who is shot atop a speeding train car in one scene enter the VERY NEXT SCENE, inside the train with no visible wounds?
2. Laughably bad dialogue. This is only a blunder if you're the writer. The shame. "My God!"
3. Cast. Jean Claude and his biological son Kristopher van Varenberg. I can see why he's not trading on his daddy's name. A little nepotism goes a long way in ruining careers, dear.
4. Inexplicably shameful graphics, technology, and use of stock helicopter footage. That includes the use of a green screen during all train-top fights.

Many thanks to Dan, Matt, D, and his roommates for ridiculing Derailed with great honesty. Their comments inspired this post.

Then Again, He Lives in France

David Sedaris once said that he volunteers with elderly citizens because he wants to see their homes. He turns them into characters, exploiting them much like I do with my ESL students.
Pause to marvel at our shameless "research."
This afternoon I walked into two senior houses that should be quarantined, boarded up, nailed shut, stomped on and away from.
One man had signs around his lawn, porch, and doors that read "Beware of Dog." He has no dog, yet his house smells as if he were harboring one or more, perhaps deceased. Odors that burn the cilia from nostrils.
Another woman invited us in to see pictures of her 58 foster children. We had to eat lunch outside because her home stank so strongly of old carpeting that the group gagged while she spoke.
We worked outdoors at both places.
But this David Sedaris lives in Paris. Do old people stink in Paris? Do they invite you in for food you could not possibly consume lest it get caught in your windpipe causing you to spend longer in the home of vile stench? Do they have dogs? How about dead dogs beneath floorboards? Eh? Eh?

Neigh

I had to admit to a very understanding stylist yesterday that I hadn't had my hair cut since February. And that I dye it at home. And that last week, I didn't wash it for 5 straight days. And that it took five days of conditioner to release the snarling mess of mortar-encrusted-100-degree-dust-baked-cucaraccha-nest I created. She looked sympathetic.
Still, I cannot help but think I am being punished for Acts Against Hair.
If what existed before was a trial bang, she assigned me a full-fledged, eye-level bang.
I perpetually tilt my head because now this bang is all up in my grill (try'na get me to a ho-tel).
I feel like a shetland pony.

Dinner Giggles or, How I Spit Milk All Over Creation

Oh, Crap.
She's at it again.
Whenever we get around each other at mealtime, Carly makes me laugh so hard that I spit out any liquid I'm holding. She waits until I've got the glass to my mouth and then says something like this:

Carly: Did you just say boughten?

Dad: No. I said, bought in.

(huge pause)

Carly: I never know whether it’s bought or boughten, so I just say 'purchased.'

Bob Sponge and his friend Diego

Bob Sponge and his friend Diego
Originally uploaded by Sriracha.

I am back.
24 hours, one bus, 41 youth. No word yet on whether we left anyone at our pee/meal stops. We sometimes counted and occasionally approximated.
Mostly we just wanted to get home.
Under the burning sun of the arrid desert, we made cement FROM SCRATCH and reenacted stories from the Old Testament in Spanish--equally difficult. All because we love God. What a taskmaster, that guy.
This week I suffered my first ankle injury. I'm not even sure how. Also, I won't tell you that my ankles are fat anyway so that I have to make a distinction betweeen a fatty fat and a regular fat ankle, but I will tell you that there were rocks everywhere, including the soccer field (which is less a field and more a flat place with many rocks and much dust). Do not be alarmed, I did not partake. Soccer involves too much running and, in Juarez, too many bloody noses.
I did, however,
1. Avoid sunburn. This is getting to be my specialty. And it's good, because I would have had the farmer-ist tan in the history of the world.
2. Learn how to say cement like people from Tennessee: "sea-meant." Call me and I'll say it for you.
3. Meet Bob Sponge, SpongeBob's Mexican twin, thanks to Diego (the cutest bowl haircut you have ever witnessed. See above).
4. Grow some dreadlocks, which I had to wash because of the bug population. Apparently, you have to declare them in customs if you're bringing back animalia.

Peter, Paul, and Me

I just ate the equivalent of an alka seltzer pill sans water.
I am a woman who follows directions. I am a woman who READS directions.
Tonight, when Carly handed me an "Airborne" tablet. I looked at it, thinking only, "I must consume this with speed. It has 17 herbs and nutrients. It will keep me from getting infected by the germs in confined spaces."
And then I chased it with water.
And then I burped.
My head is spinning a little.
But to my point:

I'm leaving on jet plane (coach bus),
Don't know when I'll be back again (a week from Saturday),
Oh, babe, I hate to go (Actually, I'm pretty excited)

So kiss me and smile for me (Or just leave a comment)
Tell me that you'll wait for me (You can wait that long)
Hold me like you'll never let me go (Hold me in your Favorites and check again in a week).

Me and the Bean

Me and the Bean
Originally uploaded by Sriracha.

This is Tommy.
Tommy, say hello to the people.
Tommy cries a lot and it makes his little chin tremble.
I think he cries because he hasn't figured out the boob yet. He'll get it.
I went to the hospital last night and made many inappropriate jokes about breast-feeding and the gelatinous matters of birth.
Having never given it, I know that God will smite me when it is my turn.

Best parent moment:
Tommy has an eye-goo problem, which John points out to Anne who then becomes delirious with worry when the nurse tells her it's 'common': "They expect me to trust her? They have no doctors ON CALL? I trust the one with the MD."
"With all due respect for your position and what you've just been through...Anne, she has had more experience with this than you."
"But he could be going blind, John."
"Well then, we'll sue."